David Hall:
The Booker T Washington commemorative half dollars were issues for six years, 1946 to 1951. Each of the three U.S. Mints...Philadelphia, Denver, and San Francisco...issued coins in all six years, so there are a total of 18 Booker T Washington issues. For the first two years, mintages were huge. In fact, for the 1946 Philadelphia BTW, over a million coins were struck. They were not very popular at the time of issue, but many survive today. They are one of the more available issues in the silver commemorative series.Tthe typical 1946 Philadelphia BTW half is quite frosty. While not rare in MS65 and MS66, due to the flatness of the design and propensity for marks, examples graded MS67 and above are quite rare. This can be said for all Booker T Washingtons, so it's definitely a design issue.